BIDDEFORD, Maine — Video captured by a witness shows agents pulling a limp body from a car and shackling his wrists moments after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a man.
The witness said agents wearing green police vests were pursuing the white sedan when they used their SUV to hit its passenger side, bringing it to a stop and surrounding it with their guns drawn. When the driver did not comply with commands to exit the car and appeared to try to flee toward an officer, at least one agent opened fire on the vehicle, she said.
The video showed the aftermath of a shooting that rapidly drew attention early Monday morning when a Biddeford lawmaker posted to social media that ICE officers had been involved in a shooting in the middle of the city at the corner of Pool and Hill streets. Protesters and Democratic political candidates rallied at Mechanics Park after the shooting.
It came at a tense political moment just days after ICE officers killed a man in Texas, on the heels of the federal immigration enforcement surge into Maine earlier this year and in the middle of Democrats’ furious nominating race to find a candidate to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot against Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
Officials have not officially identified the shooting victim. A neighbor told the Portland Press Herald the man was Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 26, originally from Colombia, a description that matches a joint statement from immigrants-rights groups that said the man had authorization to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number.
Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office confirmed that an ICE officer was the shooter. King said earlier Monday that Mullin told him the man was the target of an order to leave the country, but a King spokesperson said later in the day that Mullin said the victim was not the target of the warrant the agent was executing. King said the federal agents weren’t wearing body cameras.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Mullin told her the Boston office of the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has taken over the investigation in cooperation with the FBI. Frey’s office and Maine State Police are also involved.
Residents in the neighborhood just off the city’s downtown heard six gunshots at 7:17 a.m., according to audio from a Ring camera in a nearby apartment building shared with the Bangor Daily News. Soon after, the streets surrounding Pool and Hill streets were blocked off by caution tape as law enforcement swarmed the area, and social media lit up with chatter that immigration agents may have killed a man.
“It’s almost like it’s not real, to see it with my own eyes,” said Jessica Alfreds, who captured the audio of the gunshots on her Ring camera. Soon after, she ran to her second-floor window and watched three men in green vests running down the street.
The witness who saw and then filmed agents pulling the man from the sedan declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter but provided an account of what she saw from her Pool Street residence. The BDN obtained a copy of the video from a neighbor.
She had just stepped onto her porch for her morning cigarette when she heard the squealing of tires and then a white SUV driving down the street. A white SUV was following it, then brought it to a stop by making a wide turn and hitting the car’s passenger side, she said.
Officers wearing green vests with the word “police” in yellow surrounded the car and with their firearms raised, she said. They yelled for the driver to get out of the car with their hands up, she said. It looked as though the driver may have been trying to take off again, she said, giving an account that matched a description from Frey’s office that the driver looked set to flee.
She heard officers yell “weapon” several times before firing at the car, she said. A second witness, Justin Maynard, said he just happened to be driving down Pool street as officers surrounded the car. Maynard said the officers began to fire when the white sedan began to drive away again, and they yelled commands such as “freeze” and “don’t move.”
The woman watching from her porch started to record as an officer stood at the open driver’s side door of the sedan and pulled a man with dark skin, pale t-shirt and dark pants from the cab and onto the pavement, chest-side down. A second officer then appears to help the first tie the man’s hands behind his back. A third officer talks on a cellphone in the background, the video shows.
The witness said that one officer had walked away after the shooting and started to cry, but returned to the man and started administering CPR when the other officers said “he has a pulse.” EMS arrived a few minutes later, she said.
She estimated they attempted to resuscitate him for a few more minutes. Around that point, she assumed from their behavior that the man had died. She initially shared it on social media before taking it down because of its upsetting nature, she said.
About an hour later, just before 8:30 a.m., Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, posted on social media that a person had been killed and ICE was involved. By mid-morning, residents and members of the press had gathered in the hot sun around the caution tape that cordoned off the blocks surrounding the intersection of Pool and Hill streets.
Not long after the street was reopened, a street cleaner passed over an area where blood was visible on a crosswalk.
One man who declined to be quoted said he had heard that a Spanish-speaking man had been shot by immigration agents. The man was in the area to provide interpreter services, and said he doubted that the local resident who told him that would want to speak to a reporter. Many immigrants are afraid to draw any attention to themselves right now, he said.
Monday morning’s shooting is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents since the beginning of the second administration of President Donald Trump.
BDN writer Christopher Burns contributed to this report.